I have sent out the pre-workshop package on July 21 and thereafter. However, thanks to the filtering system of various e-mail providers, I found out that this particular mail with heavy attached files tends to be classified as a junk mail. Here, I am making this announcement to let you know that we have the registration details as above. See you all there tomorrow and after tomorrow.

While historians tend to look at things from changes over time, geographers surveys differences–both obvious and subtle–over space. James is a geographer par excellence of the latter kind. Furthermore, his interests are of the second order. Rather than analyzing what is out there and providing his own interpretation of subtleties, James is concerned about the production of knowledge based on the observer’s spacial movement and the observer’s interaction with historical memory, which is embedded in the scenes that he walks through. In James’s analysis, therefore, the subjectivity of the observer is also examined. For this workshop too, he is interested in how each participant’s reacts to things located in the places we visit and how he interprets historical memory associated with these things. The following is his personal website where you can observe the glimpse of his thinking.https://jamesthurgill.wordpress.com/

Spectral traces of Japan’s past are waiting to be uncovered at Aoyama Cemetery…what better way to prepare for Day 1 of the APWAR Summer Workshop than whiling away the hours with a little ‘ghostly’ themed reading:

[1] Kong, L. (1999) ‘Cemeteries and Columbaria, memorials and mausoleums: narrative and interpretation in the study of deathscapes in geography’, Australian Geographical Studies, 37(1), pp. 1-10.

Iris Haukamp has been with Tokyo University of Foreign Studies for about two years and, thanks to a circuit of public lectures and talk events in different milieus, she is becoming well-known among the aficionados and scholars of the pre-war and wartime Japanese films in and around Tokyo. Her scholarly interests have been on film and society with particular emphasis on trans-border production process, inter-cultural relations and gender. For this workshop, she is focusing on the basic question of why people need the visual representations of “heroes” especially in times of war. For more on Iris:

Professor Satoshi Nakano’s scholarship covers the Philippine Studies, International Relations among the Philippines, U.S. and Japan and Politics of Memory. One of the recent practical influences of his scholarship was on Japanese Emperor Akihito’s visit to the Philippines this January, in which Emperor Akihito addressed not only damages of war at large –usual ambiguities of Japanese politicians’ speeches on the issues surrounding Asia Pacific War– but actual sufferings of the Filipinos. He stated, “Last year Japan marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. During this war, fierce battles between Japan and the United States took place on Philippine soil, resulting in the loss of many Filipino lives and leaving many Filipinos injured. This is something we Japanese must never forget and we intend to keep this engraved in our hearts throughout our visit.”https://hri.ad.hit-u.ac.jp/html/359_profile_en.html